Question: IDE channel assignments

Quaro

Junior Member
Jun 29, 2000
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Just finishing a system, and I don't want to bother doing benchmarks so I wonder if anyone else has played around with this.

I've got three devices: an ibm 75gxp, toshiba 12x dvd, and plextor cdr.

Would it be preferable to have the harddrive on it's own channel? Or should I slave the dvd on there as well, and give the burner it's own channel? I do frequently do cd drive to cd drive copies with the plextor, but i don't want to slow the hard drive down any...

also, my motherboard only came with one cable, which i'm assuming is ata 100. But for a non-harddrive channel, any cable is fine right? i can just cannabalize an old computer for an ide cable?

thanks for any help


 

Wuming

Golden Member
Dec 14, 2000
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i think it would be better to have the dvd and the cdr to be on separate channels. have your hdd as primary master, the dvd as primary slave and cdr as secondary master. having the dvd and cdr on separate channels is supposed to be better for cd copying.

the ata100 cable would allow the drive to run at ata 66 or 100. depending on which of your drives are such capabilities you may want to connect them using your ata 100 cable. otherwise any old cables would do for ata 33.
 

LXi

Diamond Member
Apr 18, 2000
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Keep the DVD and CD-R on different channels, that way you can do CD to CD copy.
 

Ulysses

Platinum Member
Jun 17, 2000
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The idea is to put the devices that will be communicating data with each other the most on different channels (cables). The theory is that the data will transfer faster that way than if the devices are master and slave. But I've seen tests that indicate it probably doesn't matter how they are connected.

Another issue is that if you put the DVD or CD-RW on the same channel as the HDD, then the HDD may be limited to ATA/33 performance (which the 75GXP's can at times exceed). This too may not be significant.